"But the biggest challenge of map-making is not that we have to start
from scratch, but that if our maps are to be accurate we have to continually
revise them. The world itself is constantly changing. Glaciers come,
glaciers go. Cultures come, cultures go. There is too little technology,
there is too much technology. Even more dramatically, the vantage point
from which we view the world is constantly and quite rapidly changing.
When we are children we are dependent, powerless. As adults we may be
powerful. Yet in illness or an infirm old age we may become powerless
and dependent again. When we have children to care for, the world looks
different from when we have none; when we are raising infants, the world
seems different from when we are raising adolescents. When we are poor,
the world looks different from when we are rich. We are daily bombarded
with new information as to the nature of reality. If we are to incorporate
this information, we must continually revise our maps, and sometimes
when enough new information has accumulated, we must make very major
revisions. The process of making revisions, particularly major revisions,
is painful, sometimes excruciatingly painful. And herein lies the major
source of many of the ills of mankind.

"What happens when one has striven long and hard to develop a working
view of the world, a seemingly useful, workable map, and then is confronted
with new information suggesting that the view is wrong and the map needs
to be largely redrawn? The painful effort seems frightening, almost
overwhelming. What we do more often than not, and usually unconsciously,
is to ignore the new information. Often this act of ignoring is much
more than passive. We may denounce the new information as false, dangerous,
heretical, the work of the devil. We may actually crusade against it,
and even attempt to manipulate the world so as to make it conform to
our view of reality. Rather than try to change the map, an individual
may try to destroy the new reality. Sadly, such a person may expend
much more energy ultimately in defending an outmoded view of the world
than would have been required to revise and correct it in the first
place."